Having made room for "Boston Strong," no doubt it will soon be time to relinquish the spotlight for "Oklahoma Strong."

Yes, it’s time to lend out our newfound motto.

It turns out that "Jersey" is not just a place, but an adjective, describing the unique way in which we’ve been strong in the months since Sandy.

It doesn’t mean we have a monopoly on being strong — not that we ever asserted we did. We own the Jersey part of the slogan, that’s all.

They talk about the "circle of life," but more often it feels like a conveyor belt.

You experience a difficult time — a death in the family, a job loss or an illness. You become the center of care and attention from your friends. People tread lightly around you. They cut you a break. You slowly begin to recover.

And then something equally difficult happens to someone else in your circle. Suddenly, you are no longer the most recent one to go through tough times. Your time on the conveyor belt of sympathy has come to an abrupt end.

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You aren’t yet fully recovered, but no matter. Ready or not, it’s time for you to be the giver again, not the recipient.

And you discover that returning to the role of giver helps you recover even better. If you thought you had nothing to spare, you realize you actually do have some compassion left to send to someone else.

That’s New Jersey’s situation now, in the wake of a tornado that took a hurricane’s sustained power and compressed it into minutes of destruction.

Earlier this week, a letter-writer bemoaned that much of New Jersey remains unrepaired from the hurricane. While this is true — and tremendously upsetting to people — we’re six months ahead of Oklahoma on the paperwork trail. Those poor people are just starting.

While the phrase "Jersey Strong" happens to be trademarked, the concept isn’t. Can’t be. (Although now that researchers can hold patents on our genes, maybe they can hold patents on our emotions as well?)

We’ve been strong in our own way; now, Oklahomans will put their stamp on the word.

We can’t export some Jersey-style strength directly to them because it probably wouldn’t transplant well. We’re guessing it would be too ... loud, too abrupt, too funny for their tastes.

They’ll come up with their own way to be strong — a version that won’t look very familiar to us, but will get the job done nonetheless.

If it helps, they’re welcome to borrow our bumper-sticker motto and make it their own. We can see they need it more than us, and we’re strong enough here to spare it.